Flute a Beck by Beck. For Recorder, strings and harp. Recorder with other Instruments. 3 - Moderate. Published by Magnamusic Distributors Inc (MM.PJT0093).
Concerto for Recorder, strings and harp. The composer describes this piece: Flute a Beck is of course a pun on the French name for the recorder. The concerto requires four sizes of instrument, the most difficult for balance being the tenor, whose contribution is confined to the lightly scored first movement. From the outset the interval of the minor third, later to become a feature of the finale, is the basis for both an anxious recorder tune accompanied by harp, and a chordal episode for the strings. The recorder soliloquises. The finale, for treble recorder, was originally planned as a scherzo but it outgrew its intended purpose. After a brief introduction featuring the falling minor thirds the soloist enters with the main theme, similarly derived. Then he is threatened by a marauding barrel-organ before an angular tutti introduces a lyrical passage for recorder and harp alone. After some development and recapitulation of this material the work comes to an end with a fast coda. Between these movements is interposed a ternary movement (using both descant and sopranino recorders) whose opening section represents a wide-open pastoral scene, but one of the jet age, at first enveloped in a mist that clears to expose a distant and naive piping, accompanied by harp and tremolo strings. The central fugal section in quintuple time might be taken as representing a view in the far distance of urban life. Birdsong, a lark maybe, is heard as the misty section returns.